I need more.
I pull up the map on my phone and look at the route to her apartment. Twenty minutes at this time of night. I could be therein twenty minutes, could pick her lock in under a minute, could stand in her doorway and watch her sleep and she'd never know.
I've let myself into her place before. I need to do it now. I need to make sure she's safe, make sure she's not scared, make sure?—
No.
I set down the phone and grip the edge of the counter hard enough that my knuckles go white. I need control. This only works if I maintain control, if I don't spook her, if I play this right.
One wrong move and she runs. And if she runs, I'll have to chase her. And if I have to chase her, this gets messy.
I don't want messy. I want her willing, want her to choose this, choose me.
Even if the choice is rigged from the start.
I grab the scotch again and walk to the windows. The city spreads below me, millions of lights, millions of people, and she's out there in the northwest corner of her building. Her bedroom window doesn't face the street—I checked—so she has privacy from everyone except the person who's been inside enough times to know the layout.
Me.
She's in bed by now. It's late and Francesca needs her sleep. She's wearing those ridiculous mermaid pajamas I saw folded on her dresser. She's checked her locks—once, maybe twice because what happened scared her more than she's letting on.
And she's thinking about me.
She has to be, lying there in the dark trying to convince herself that coffee is normal, is safe, is just getting to know someone who helped her. She's replaying the moment our hands touched, wondering why it felt like that, why she said yes when every instinct told her to say no.
She's already falling and she doesn't even know it.
The thought sends a dark thrill through me. She's lying there thinking about me while I'm standing here thinking about her, and the symmetry of it is almost perfect—almost, but it'll be perfect when she's here, when she's in my bed instead of hers, when I don't have to imagine what she's doing because I can just turn over and see her.
I check the schedule in my head. I have a regular meeting with Don Marco in the morning—same problem as always lately. Bratva pushing into Midtown, someone needs to die, probably multiple someones. I'll handle it. I always do. Then I'll shower, change, and meet my woman for coffee.
I'll charm her, make her laugh, touch her hand again and watch her pupils dilate. I'll make her want more, make her need more, make her mine in every way that matters.
The burner phone is still in my hand and I look at the photos again. I can't help it. She's an addiction and I've been feeding it for months and now I got my first real taste and now I'm fucking starving for more.
I stop on a photo from last month. She's coming out of the coffee shop after her shift, coffee in hand. She looks tired and beautiful, completely unaware that the man across the street is cataloging every detail of her existence.
Mine,I think, and the word settles into my bones like truth.
I'll see her again in hours. I'll touch her again, hear her laugh, get closer.
The real work begins then—making her fall in love with the man I'm pretending to be while I keep the monster hidden just beneath the surface.
She won't see it coming.
And by the time she realizes what I am, it'll be too late. She'll already be so deep she can't walk away.
I drain the scotch and finally force myself to bed. But I don't sleep. I lie there in the dark thinking about her lying in the darkmiles away, thinking about the moment I'll see her, the way her face will light up when I walk into view, the way she'll try to hide how happy she is to see me.
She won't hide it well enough. She's not good at hiding.
I've been watching.
And I'll watch her fall a little more in love with a lie. And I'll love every second of it—every smile, every blush, every moment she leans toward me instead of away.
I close my eyes and picture her face—not from the photos, but from earlier, the way she looked at me in that café, wary and attracted and trying so hard to be smart about this.
I can still feel her hand in mine. Alive. Real.
